American Ertharin Cousin to head World Food Program

UNITED NATIONS Jan 17 (Reuters) - The United Nations
announced on Monday the appointment of Ertharin Cousin, an
American with a varied career in corporate, non-profit and
government affairs, as the next head of the Rome-based World
Food Program.

Cousin, a stalwart of the U.S. Democratic Party who is now
U.S. ambassador to U.N. food agencies in Rome, will succeed
Josette Sheeran, also of the United States, who has held the
post since 2007.

The appointment followed a U.N. practice whereby jobs as
heads of major agencies held by citizens of permanent Security
Council members often pass to successors from the same country.
It was announced by U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Food
and Agriculture Organization chief Jose Graziano da Silva.

Sheeran is joining the World Economic Forum in Geneva as
vice president when her WFP term expires in April.

The WFP is the primary U.N. agency for hunger relief and
says that each year, on average, it feeds more than 90 million
people in more than 70 countries.

Trained as a lawyer, Chicago-born Cousin has worked in the
retail food sector and served as an executive of Feeding
America, the largest U.S. domestic hunger organization. She led
that organization's response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

During the administration of U.S. President Bill Clinton in
the 1990s, she worked as deputy chief of staff for the
Democratic National Committee and later White House liaison at
the State Department.

U.S. President Barack Obama said in a statement on Tuesday
that the United Nations "will be well served by Ambassador
Cousin's experience and commitment to the World Food Program's
vision of a world in which every citizen has access to the food
they need to survive and to thrive."